Fast results from your marketing and sales processes. This is what is needed to impact the bottom line in all the aspects of being in business everyday. Are you getting them?

It was another great time at the 2018 AXFI Conference that took place June 10th through 13th.  It started out with a very informal band rehearsal at the home of Paul Ablack, the CEO of OnApproach. We were getting ready for what's become an annual tradition, a music performance on the Sunday evening before the start of the conference. Who knew the tech world included so much musical aptitude?! 

Perhaps it's the “everybody's doing it” nature of spam emails, for it's a rare marketer who hasn't nursed the thought, “Yeah, so I've sent unsolicited emails. It's the nature of the business and it's no big deal.” Maybe some think because they are a small, relatively unknown company among thousands of others, it won't be noticed if they purchase a few email lists and blast away.

In fact, spamming remains a very big deal because of the CAN-SPAM Act, and today, there are new regulations going into affect and a heightened awareness to consumer privacy. Violating laws can sink a catastrophic financial bite into your bottom line if you're held to account for violating it.  Maybe it's time for a refresh.

To truly influence an audience, whether it's in a sales setting, a training event or business conference, you'll need to tap into emotions and communication styles. 

There are many salespeople who are so focused on selling or promoting their products that they lose sight of the internal process and experience of the buyer.  How we're able to communicate these days has also changed the landscape for buying and selling.  These two factors combined can decimate the bottom line for a company who isn't actively taking steps to close the gaps that only get bigger with the passage of time.

Always intended but easy to overlook as the days go by, follow-up in the sales process is often the first area I zero in on when helping someone identify problems with their sales process. Why is it so often a culprit? Because of the second problem of not asking enough questions and making note of the answers which provide the avenues for meaningful follow-up.

Fresh off the holiday season, many marketing managers would be happy to tell you how they exemplified best practices with their holiday greeting cards.

We all know the game. Market your products or services (hopefully using the inbound approach), collect the leads and then you get the sales…right? If it isn't turning out this way, maybe something is missing. Could you be sending your sales team down a dark and lonely stairwell to figure out how to handle the steps between a lead and a closed sale?

According to 2018 predictions by the folks over at Campaign Monitor, email marketing is about to become much, much more complex. The experts of the site say that the most successful companies in 2018 will be the ones who focus on producing more of, and consciously improving, their automated emails.